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TIIE 


Y 

FELLOWSHIP OF SLAVEHOLDERS 


INCOMPATIBLE 


WITH A 


CHRISTIAN PROFESSION. 



SEW YORK: 

AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 
1 859 . 





















































* 









































































Fellowship of Slaveholders 

INCOMPATIBLE WITH A 

CHRISTIAN PROFESSION. 


A great crisis impends. God puts a pregnant and 
solemn question to the American Church. He demands 
an immediate and explicit answer. He that has eyes 
must see the issue between Freedom and Slavery. He 
that has ears must hear the voice of God calling upon the 
Church—calling upon you ana me—to stand on his side. 
Have you such faith in him that you are willing to follow 
him, regardless of consequences ? Hare you stand alone, 
if need be, for the right? Will you side with slavery, or 
against it ? This is a test which no American church- 
member can evade. You shall encounter this touchstone 
at every corner. Whoever falls upon it shall be broken ; 
but on whomsoever it may fall, it shall grind him to pow¬ 
der. 

It is not my purpose to paint the features of that great 
crime, which is practically enthroned in our political 
Constitution, and which, “ as God, sitteth in the temple 
of God, showing itself that it is God.’’ I have not the 
ability, had I the disposition, to delineate or compute the 
wrongs of the slave, multiplied as they are million-fold, 
and perpetuated through centuries. My business is with 
those who admit that slavery is a sin, but fellowship the 
sinner. He who is so stupid as not to be able to discern, 
by a simple application of the Golden Rule, that slavery 




4 


is a great crime, may as well read no further. He would 
seem to be too stupid to be a Christian. 

Slavery, then, is confessedly a transgression of God’s 
law. Unlike many other sins, however, it is powerful in 
State and Church. Those who study, even superficially, 
its relations are amazed at its multifarious and intricate 
connections with all our political, religious and social life. 
It is entwined with every muscle and fibre of the body 
politic—nay, of the professed visible body of Christ, the 
organized Church. That religious society which has 
seriously endeavored to free itself from all complicity with 
slavery will smile at the question, “ What have we to do 
with this evil ? ” To dissolve all connection with it—all 
such connection as can fairly convey the impression that 
the Church sanctions it—all such connection as gives it 
aid and comfort, is found to be like the sundering of soul 
and body. Most of those who have looked deepest into 
the subject declare the Anti-Slavery cause to be the 
entering wedge that shall cleave in twain the visible 
Church. Be it yours and mine to drive that w r edge home. 
Out of agitation will come purity ; out of death, life. 
Paradise lies beyond the grave. 

Ask the man who has gone farther than this—who has 
made it his life-work to weaken and destroy the monster— 
ask him what be thinks of the connection of the Church 
with Slavery. But I forget. You may not wish to be 
seen with biro. The Jtws have no dealings with the 
Samaritans. “ Infidel' 1 may be branded on his brow. 
“ Fanatic ” i3 howled in his ears. His good name is 
blasted. PI is pathway is through thorns and among pit- 
falls. He iuos a gaunlet through a million lashes, kicks, 
stirg3. With a heavy cross aDd bleeding feet, be is ever 
toiling up some Dew Calvary. 

There is no help for this. It must needs be that 
offtnees come. In this boasted land of light and freedom, 
and beneath the shadow of its hundred thousand steeples, 
it is as true as ever it was in Palestine that whosoever 
will follow our Savior must deny himself, and take up his 
cross ; must be hated of all men for his name’s sake ; and 


5 


whosoever would save his life must lose it; and if any 
man, in comparison, hate not his father and mother and 
wife and children, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be 
his disciple, lie needs something of that fiery earnestness 
which characterized the apostle Paul, burning on, inde¬ 
structible and unquenchable, through the blackest night 
of malice and the deepest waters of affliction—pouring 
forth its radiant light to illuminate the dark, and con¬ 
densing that light into lightning to thunder-blast the 
wrong ! You need not be told, my friend, it is a pretty 
serious matter to be a Christian. To play pious is a dif¬ 
ferent thing. 

For this reason : Whoever professes to be a Christian, 
professes to stand on the abstract right. He pledges 
himself, before angels and men, and in the presence of 
almighty God, to renounce all sin ; he surrenders himself 
unreservedly to the divine will and disposal ; he covenants 
that, whatever he does, he will do all to the divine glory. 
Between him and every form of iniquity there must be 
an eternal and exterminating war. lie is to hate all sin, 
without exception, without evasion, without compromise. 
Though the sin look fair and beautiful, it makes no differ¬ 
ence. He must hate it all. Though the universe com¬ 
bine in support of the wrong, it makes no difference. He 
is to stand, if need be, alone with God. Though friends 
vanish, and enemies frown, though property and family 
and respectability must be surrendered, though a myriad 
tortures rack his flesh, and the crudest death impend over 
him, it makes no difference. Our dear Master walked 
that path. Earth and hell were leagued to put him down 
With unfaltering step and unblanched cheek, he trod the 
wine-press alone Alone! You and I must follow him. 

Apply the principle. To human vision, the system of 
Southern slavery loom3 up as the most gigantic sin of 
this nation. The Churches, however, occupy a guilty posi¬ 
tion in regard to it—a great number directly upholding 
and justifying it—a still larger number sanctioning and 
encouraging it by complicity and silence—the remainder 
condemning it in words, but supporting it by deeds, inas- 


6 


much as they refuse to treat slaveholding as they treat 
other sins, viz. : by renouncing all church association, 
connection and fellowship with the confirmed slaveholder, 
and his apologists and justifiers. I repeat it; ninety-nine 
of every hundred Churches refuse to treat this atrocious 
sin with as much severity as they treat the most trivial 
sins. At the communion table, in the administration of 
baptism, at ministerial ordinations and installations, iu 
church correspondence, in letters of dismission and recom¬ 
mendation, by the customs and courtesies of the pulpits, 
in the meetings, the fellowship and the action of great 
representative religious organizations, both State and 
national, ninety-nine hundredths of all our Churches 
uphold, publish, and solemnly authenticate, confirmed 
slaveholders and their confirmed apologists as Christians 
“in good and regular standing.” For in the creed of 
every one of these Churches, in one form or another, it is 
proclaimed that none but true disciples of our Lord Jesus 
Christ are thu3 entitled to public recognition as Chris¬ 
tians. The inference i9 irre-istible, that they openly, by 
their acts, no matter what their language may be, support 
and countenance this great enormity. Sinning wilfully 
after they have received a knowledge of the truth, they 
tempt the world to brand them as hypocrites. - Holding 
up by their conduct the idea that Christianity is not 
inconsistent with this wickedness of oppression, they bring 
scandal upon the Christian name, and thus crucify the 
Son of God afresh. 

Suppose that our Churches should publicly, on all occa¬ 
sions, treat known thieves, robbers, adulterers, gamblers, 
or their upholders and apologists, as Christians in good 
and regular standing. Would you disown and repudiate 
such a Christianity, or not? Yet this is precisely what 
the Church has doLe, only a thousand times worse. 
“ One murder makes a villain ; millions, a hero.” The 
slave system steals men, steals infants as soon as they are 
born. It robs the slave of all his rights. Its central 
principle is that the slave is not a man, but property. It 
denies him the right to come and go at will. He is con- 


fined to the narrow limits his master may assign, com¬ 
prising a few rods, or at most a few miles. He is denied 
the right to make any legal contract, even for earning his 
own freedom lie is denied the right of free speech, to 
say nothing of the freedom of the press. He is denied 
the right to acquire property; for not a slave in the 
South can be the legal owner of a single cent. He is 
denied the right to marry; for by the laws of all the 
slave States, not one of the slaves can have a lawful wife 
! or husband. They live in enforced concubinage. Not a 
| legitimate child is ever born of a slave father or mother. 
He is denied the right to the society of father or mother, 
wife or child. Dr. Adams acknowledges that in a slave 
prayer-meeting he could nut explain the “ our Father ” of 
the Lord’s Prayer, to slaves. They know nothing of 
i father or mother. The fifth commandment is annihilated. 

The family is broken up—worse than annihilated. They 
j have no home. The endearments that cluster around that 
' sacred spot, the thousand sweet memories which that 
word awakens in your heart and mine—what can the 
homeless slave know of them ? He is denied the right of 
self-defence against violence. If a slave lift his arm 
against the stripes that tear his flesh, the master may 
strike him dead, and there is no redress. Christian 
mother, wife, daughter, the slave woman can be compelled, 
on peualty of death, if no white witness be present, to 
submit to the lust of the most beastly monster that ever 
polluted the earth, and there is no redress. The slave is 
denied liberty of conscience. The master’s will is his 
conscience*. The master is his God. What a God! 
Corresponding often precisely to our devil. He can have 
no more character than an ox. He is denied a hearing 
in any court of justice. His testimony against a white 
man is forbidden by law. In some States he is denied 
the right to choose freedom, even if it be conceded by a 
will ; in others, the master is not permitted to emancipate 
him. He is denied education. It is a State’s prison 
offence to teach him to read the name of God. Even in 
the Cherokee Churches, sustained by the American Board 


of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, slaveholders are 
members in good standing ; though the law, which is one 
of the very mildest of the kind, reads, “It shall not be 
lawful for any person or persons whatever to teach any 
free negro or negroes, not of Cherokee blood, or any slave 
belonging to any citizen or citizens of the nation, to read 
or write,’’ under a penalty of $100 to $500 at the “dis¬ 
cretion of the court.” Some of the most influential men 
in procuring the passage of such enactments have been 
members of our Churches in good and regular standing. 
The slave is denied the right to improve his mind. One 
of the most alarming evidences of the wickedness of 
slavery is that it so destroys the slave’s manhood, that 
he is sometimes even contented and willing to be reduced 
to a level with the ox or horse. But why pursue the 
sickening catalogue further ? In the language of the 
highest (lowest?) judicial tribunal in our country, the 
black man, whether slave or nominally free, has “ no 
rights that the white man is bound to respect.” Bat 
perhaps the State, having thus crippled and rendered 
helpless, both in body and soul, this unfortunate race, is 
specially tender of them, and does not exact a responsi¬ 
bility disproportioned to their ability. Just the opposite. 
I have no time to show how unequal and cruel are the 
penal laws of the slave States. One example may suffice. 
By the laws of Virginia, sixty-eight crimes are punisha¬ 
ble with death if committed by a slave; if by a white 
free person, only four crimes are punishable with death. 
Nor have I time to enumerate the evil influences upon 
the white man—do show bow it makes labor dishonora¬ 
ble ; makes free schools utterly impossible ; makes slave¬ 
holders indolent, insolent, tyrannical; tempts them to 
licentiousness by supplying a race of unprotected lemales ; 
rewards vice by making offspring follow the condition of 
the mother, thus offering a premium for unbridled lust; 
deprives the Northern citizen of all right to speak or 
print freely, or to travel freely, in the South, if he be a 
known friend of the black man ; imprisons our innocent 
seamen; sells our citizens for their jail fees ; turns us all 


9 


into bloodhounds to hunt fugitives from bondage, annul¬ 
ling and exactly reversing tbe higher law of God, “ Thou 
ehalt not deliver unto his master the servant that has 
escaped from his master unto thee ” ; corrupts and blunts 
the moral perception of leading men in tbe Northern 
Church, until President Lord, Prof. Stuart, Dr. Adams, 
and the great majority of Doctors of Divinity, cannot dis¬ 
cern its sinfulness; and everywhere excites a cruel preju¬ 
dice against the colored man, until at least two of the 
leading churches of Boston will not permit a negro to 
occupy the same floor with tbe white man at divine wor¬ 
ship ; thus practically saying they would rather his soul 
should be forever lost than gain salvation on an equality 
with themselves. 

But why dwell on this point? “Every man knows 
that slavery is a curse. Whoever denies this, his lips 
libel bis heart. Try him ! Clank the chains in his ears, 
and tell him they are for h m ; give him an hour to pre¬ 
pare his wife and children for a life of slavery; bid him 
make baste, and get ready their necks for the yoke, and 
their wrists for the coffle chains; then look at his pale 
lips and trembling knees, and you have nature’s testimony 
against slavery.” 

What, then, is tbe duty of the American Church in 
regard to slavery ? If the incorrigible sheep-stealer be 
excommunicated, shall the incorrigible man stealer escape ? 
If those who countenance sheep-stealing be deemed worthy 
of excision, shall the accessories of man-stealers be authen¬ 
ticated as Christians in good and regular standing ? 
How much, then, is a man better than a sheep ? 

There is ODe thing the Church has not yet done—one 
measure to which it has never resorted. It has never 
taken the decisive step of excommunicating acknowledged 
supporters of slavery. It has never cut off all church 
association, connection and fellowship with those indivi¬ 
duals and churches that knowingly and persistently coun¬ 
tenance slavery. That is, it has not treated slavery as it 
professes to treat all sin. It has made an exception in 
favor of the open or silent upholders of slavery—makes 


10 


especial saints of them. Witness the great Nehemiab 
Adams. 

Now, in the name of eternal justice, and with all the 
seriousness of one who believes that endless consequences 
hang on the decision of the present hour, I ask by what 
right the Church suppresses its condemnation of this vast 
system of wrong ? By what right does she blast with 
her anathemas the characters of all true Abolitionists? 
By what right does the professed Church of the living 
God fold to its bosom in fraternal embrace the man-stealer, 
or his accomplice in crime? By what right does it turn 
a deaf ear to the cry of the stolen and helpless African ? 
By what right do you, professing Christian, walk to the 
communion-table of our dying Lord, arm in arm with one 
whose every step is on the bondman’s soul ? 

Suppose the fugitive slaves in Canada, being a majo¬ 
rity, or the actual slaves of Carolina, being a majority, 
should enslave the whites there; and, being professing 
Christians, should desire to be fellowsbipped as such 1 Is 
there a Church in the North that would not feel insulted 
and shocked by the proposition? Yet no ingenuity can 
show that black slavery is any better than white slavery. 

What, then, are the alleged reasons for neglecting to 
dissolve all the religious bonds that connect us with the 
slaveholder and his open and silent supporters ? There 
are two reasons to which, I believe, all others may be 
reduced, for I will not answer the blasphemy which makes 
Christ and the Apostles to have countenanced the atrocity. 

First, it is asserted that some slaveholders are Chris¬ 
tians ; that their sin is one of ignorance, and we ought to 
be charitable towards them. Christian sinners! My 
charitable evangelical brother, you are not so illiberal as 
to deny that there are some Christians among Unitarians 
or Universalists : why not fellowship these ? You answer 
that their doctrines are erroneous. But can any false 
doctrine be more fundamentally hostile to the spirit and 
teachings of our Savior, more fatal to our Christianity, 
than to hold that man may become property, and be 
rightfully bought and sold like an ox or a sheep ? Is it 


11 


not as bad as a denial of total depravity or endless future 
punishment ? Did God give bis only begotten Son to 
die for f urniture or real estate ? Did our blessed Redeemer 
shed his blood for cattle ? Can He, in the person of the 
slave, be sold like a calf in the shambles of oppression ? 
Alas! that there should be any need of asking a profess¬ 
ing Christian such a question as that! 

You still insist that some slaveholders are Christians ; 
that their sin is of the head, and not of the heart ; and 
that they are entitled to be treated as Christians, in obe¬ 
dience to the dictates of charity. But is it thus you, deal 
with other Christians, guilty of the sin of ignorance? 
Are there not Christians who neglect to comply with the 
ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper ? Are there 
not some who, unconscious of the deep sin they incur, 
partake too freely of the intoxicating cup? Are there 
not some who, for a like reason, practise gaming, or 
habitually frequent theatres ? In the name of consistency, 
how can you refuse to recognize publicly as Christian the 
character of such sinners, while you at the same time pub¬ 
licly treat the slaveholder, or his abettor, as a true and 
unblemished disciple? Have you charity for no sinners 
but slaveholders ? What kind of charity is that which 
: accepts the plea of ignorauce as a sufficient excuse for 
the sinful practice of slaveholding, but instantly rejects 
it as insufficient to excuse the otoer sinful practices ? 

The slaveholder’s sin that of ignorance! How came 
he so ignorant ? Have the thunders of God’s word never 
startled him from his dreams ? Has the Christian Church 
stifled the utterance of Christian truth ? Have you 
neglected to warn him of the frightful danger he incurs 
of everlasting punishment? Have you been faithless so 
long? Will you not, then, instantly make amends for 
your loDg delay, by warning him now in the most effectual 
way you possibly can do it, by solemnly withdrawing 
Christian fellowship from him until be repent? Hasten, 
Christian, for charity’s sake, to undeceive the slaveholder, 
by letting the light of your stern and solemn condemna¬ 
tion flash upon his sin ! It is no kindness, but cruelty* 



12 


to him to keep calling him your Christian brother. It is 
not charity, but the exact opposite, to allow him any 
longer to remain self-deceived as to his true character, 
conduct and position. He misinterprets your meaning, 
and is comforted in his sin. . “ Woe unto them that call 
evil good, and good evil; that put light for darkness, and 
darkness for light; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet 
for bitter.’' Hear Paul, 2d Thess. 3, 6 : “ K T ow we com¬ 
mand you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
that ye ivithdraw yourselves from every brother that 
walketh disorderly.” 

Perhaps you answer by comparing such radical anti¬ 
slavery action to the conduct of the disciples who came 
to Christ, saying, “ Master, we found one casting out 
devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he fol- 
loweth not with us.” To which our Savior answered, 
“ Forbid him not.” The case is totally different. I com¬ 
plain of the countenancers of slavery, that they do not 
cast out the devil. Sundry little imps, like dancing, 
horse-racing, gambling, card-playing, they indeed exorcise 
most vigorously with a zeal worthy of a bigger cause. 
But the great, fashionable, national, omnipotent devil, 
the personified “ sum of all villanies,” is not cast out at all, 
but is coaxed, flattered, taken by the hand, lovingly led 
to the baptismal font and the communion table, and called 
a Christian brother! “ What fellowship hath Christ with 
Belial?” 

A word more in regard to charity. What kind v 
charity i3 that which heeds not the four millions oppressed, 
while it welcomes the oppressor ? which is tender as a 
girl’s heart to the feelings of the tyrant, but deaf as an 
adder, blind as a Pharisee, heartless as a stone, to the 
miseries of his victims ? For be it remembered, it is the 
respectable sinner that gives most encouragement to sin. 
It is the respectable rumseller that most supports intem¬ 
perance. It is the respectable wine-drinker, theatre-goer, 
gambler, liar, swearer, whose example is most ruinous. 
And it is, in a preeminent degree, the professedly Chris¬ 
tian slaveholder, and the professedly Christian apologist, 



13 


that are most responsible for the continuance and the 
immense progress of this great wrong. It is the professed 
Christian that gives it character. If he countenance it, 
people think it must be all right. He inspires the Legrees 
with boldness. He, and not the profane, not the vulgar, 
not the brutal task-master, slave-breeder, slave hunter, 
gives respectability and assurance to this sin. 

In this light, how fearful the mistake of that Christian 
minister who occupies an equivocal position—facing both 
ways, execrating the crime, but fellowshipping the impeni¬ 
tent criminal—with one hand dealing heavy blows against 
the abstract sin, but with the other pointing to the actual 
sinner, and saying, in actions that speak louder than 
words, “ That man is a true disciple of Christ.” Men do 
not fall into open gulfs, but into covered pits. An 
acknowledged teacher of Bible truth ; his mission to show 
by precept and example the path to heaven ; bis lips 
touched with fire, like Isaiah’s, to kindle a flame against 
all wrong ; an almost idolized shepherd, to whom the 
lambs of the flock turn lovingly for light, and guidance, 
and spirtual food ; an ambassador of Christ, sanctifying 
the circle in which be moves; standing as an angel by the 
bed of the sick and the dying, at the marriage and the 
funeral, at the baptismal altar and the table of our com¬ 
mon Lord ; kneeling with the penitent and the sorrowing; 
usually foremost in works of charity; generous, kind- 
hearted, loved, trusted, implicitly followed as a pillar of 
cloud and fire through the wilderness of this world ; pos¬ 
sessed of learning and culture; a pattern man, a model 
Christian ; what a responsibility is his ! Wbat a power 
to lead right! What a power to lead wrong ! Where he 
goes, the multitude think it safe to go. Wbat he does, 
the multitude think it right to do. Into his pulpit be in¬ 
vites the pastor of a Church that contains slaveholding 
members in good and regular standing ! He even gives 
money to sustain Churches of slaveholders 1 Not satisfied 
with this, he encourages bis people to do the same! Or 
in some other of a hundred ways he publicly recognizes 
the slaveholder, or the apologist or couctenaneer of 



14 


slavery, as a true brother in Christ. All the while, his 
voice is as thunder against slavery in the abstract / 
Where now are your moral distinctions? Who shall 
guide me, when sun, moon and stars give a wandering 
and uncertain light ? The moral vision of well-meaning 
but uninformed church-members is confused, their moral 
sense is blunted, their moral standard is lowered, their 
conscience is lulled asleep, in reference to the wickedness 
of slavery, just in proportion as such a minister stands 
high in their esteem and confidence. “ If the light that 
is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! ’ 

I say it is the professedly Christian slaveholder who, 
by hi3 example, presses, with tightest grip, the throat of 
the black man. Nay, it is the professedly Christian 
Church , which treats the persistent and wilful apologists 
for slavery as brethren in good standing, that, by its 
example, crushes its iron heel deepest into the black man’s 
heart. With pious hands it forges, rivets, twists to the 
bone, the chain that cramps his body and soul. Lips 
perfumed with prayers, and honeyed with texts of Scrip¬ 
ture, forbid the slave to learn to read the n^me of Christ! 
Eyes streaming with philanthropic tears for the benighted 
heathen in foreign lands cannot see the four million 
perishing heathen in our own country 3 Hands locked 
in the dear fraternal clasp of the slave-monger cannot 
loose that blessed hold, even for an instant, to try to give 
the sweets of freedom or the bread of life to the enslaved 
and starving millions! Charity forbids it! They may 
go to perdition first! 

Charity to the Christian slaveholder ! to the Christian 
countenancer of slavery! If he be a Christian, he will 
cheerfully consent to be excommunicated rather than 
have Christianity saddled with his sin. The true follower 
of Christ will not allow, if he can prevent it, that his 
wickedness should be charged to the account of his Mas¬ 
ter. His language will be, “ Do not sully the white robe 
of Christianity by making it a cloak for my iniquities. 
Let no man suppose that my wrong deeds are permitted 
by the Church. If my equivocal position be a stumbling- 


15 


block in the path of truth, let me be removed, rather than 
the right be impeded. If my presence bring scandal upon 
the Church by-reason of my weakness, let me be removed, 
aDd the good name of the Church restored.” “ I could 
almost wish that I were accursed from Christ, for my 
brethren and the Church’s sake.” Romans, ix., 3. 

Secondly, it is alleged that to attempt to cut loose from 
all complicity with slavery, would involve awful conse¬ 
quences ,* it would carry us we know not where ; perhaps 
outside of all religious organizations—perhaps, out of our 
Churches; it would associate U9 with Abolitionists and 
fanatics, “ publicans and sinners ” ; it would tend to Gar- 
risonianism and “ infidelity ” ; it would shiver the Church ; 
destroy our influence ; subject us to ridicule, contempt and 
eDmity; and, after all, we might not succeed in getting 
entirely free from the. sin— &c., &c. To all such argu¬ 
ment, there is one short and decisive answer. What 
business have you to look at a question of duty in the 
light of mere expediency ? Here is a sin to be repented 
of and renounced. “ Row is the accepted time ; now is 
the day of salvation.” Your work is to follow Christ, no 
matter where be leads you. “ Seek first the kingdom of 
God aDd bis righteousness.” Here is a plain, moral obli¬ 
gation resting upon you : how dare you hesitate, or 
reckon the consequences ? When you gave yourself up 
to God, was it with a stipulation that you should serve 
him only so far as it might be easy and safe ? or had you 
a prior contract with the devil, which you did not cancel? 
Away with such a time-serving, eye-eerviDg, sneaking, 
whimpering Christianity 1 Listen to the Great Teacher : 
“No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking 
back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” And again : “ He 
that loveth father or mother more than me is Dot worthy 
of me ; aDd be that loveth son or daughter more than me 
is not worthy of me ; and he that taketh not his cross and 
followeth alter me is not worthy of me. He that findeth 
his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake, 
shall find it.” 

Do you answer that the Church, a3 it is, must be 



16 


regarded a?, on the whole, a great instrumentality for 
good, though she may come far short of her duty in this 
matter ? Do you say that therefore you would do better 
to support it just as it is than make a great outcry and 
agitation, and so run the risk of breaking it in pieces? 
Do you affirm that the Church as it is enjoys manifest 
tokens of the divine favor, increasing in numbers and 
wealth and irflaence? Be not deceived. Such are not 
the tokens of God’s blessing which our Savior enumerates. 
“ Blessed are ye when men shall revile you,and persecute 
you falsely for my sake.” “ Woe unto you when all men 
shall speak well of you, for so did your fathers of th e false 
prophets.” So it must be in a corrupt age like this. I 
do not say that the Church is not, on the whole, a bless¬ 
ing. Possibly, Mahometanism, Mormoniem or Paganism 
is better than no religion. Possibly, God over ruling the 
wickedness, many sinners may be converted under an 
apostate ministry. But the chances are that a corrupt 
tree will hardly bring forth good fruit. Christ told the 
Pharisees that they made their proselytes two-fold more 
the children of hell than themselves. A corrupt Church 
may seem to be accomplishing much fGr him, prophesying 
in his name, and in his name casting out devils, and in 
his name doing many wonderful works; but at the last 
there comes the terrible “ I never knew you! Depart 
from me, ye workers of iniquity ! ” 

However glorious the American Church may have 
been in past generations, its present position must be 
judged by the light of this. A great conflict has arisen 
between true Christianity and the mightiest of despotisms. 
For more than a quarter of a century, the Church has 
been implored to throw her enormous weight into the 
scale, and decide the struggle in favor of the right. Rev. 
Albert Barnes has said that there is no power outside of 
the Church that could sustain slavery an hour were it not 
supported in the Church. But where does it stand? 
What position does the professed living, visible body of 
Christ occupy in this contest ? Behind Russia, behind 
piratical Algiers, behind despotic Austria, thirty years 


17 


behind those whom it stigmatizes as “ infidels! ” Behind 
them? It is opposed to them. It is in fellowship with 
the man-stealer, and with those who countenance man¬ 
stealing. 

By its professions, it would lead the gathering hosts in 
this great battle against oppression. It remains to be 
seen whether it will at last wheel into line. Its position 
is watched with intense interest; for if it side against 
Christ, it cannot consistently rebuke any sin. False, 
shrinking, time-serving, pusillanimous, double-dealing in 
regard to the “ sum of all villanies,” can such a Church 
have the impudence to rebuke smaller offences? With 
the enormous beam of slavery, projecting visibly from its 
own eye, will it dare to profess to see motes in the visual 
organs of other sinners? Swallowing this huge camel 
without a sign of choking, will it strain out the little 
gnats that come in its way ? I have heard the triumphant 
and scornful laugh of a Mormon, as he bade the evange¬ 
lical Christian look in a mirror, and see the lineaments of 
a Pharisee who countenanced the traffic in human bodies 
and souls. Shall the Church—the bride of Christ—thus 
muzzle her own lips ? Then, hereafter, when lesser sins 
fling defiance in her teeth — when swindlers and blas¬ 
phemers knock at her doors for admission—when bloody 
bands demand the communion bread, and lying lips claim 
the consecrated wine—when lust and shame and violence 
present themselves at her altar for solemn baptism—when 
heathen polygamy, or caste, or licentiousness, or idolatry, 
or any crime, flaunts its banners in her face—let her be 
dumb as she is now. Or if she dare utter a word of 
remonstrance, let her expect the stinging rebuke, “ Hypo¬ 
crite ! countenancing this million-fold robbery, concubi¬ 
nage, dethronement of God 1 look home ! ” “ Thou that 
preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal ? Thou 
that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou 
commit adultery ? Thou that abhorrest idol3, dost thou 
commit sacrilege ? Thou that makest thy boast of the 
law, through breaking the law disbonoreat thou God? ” 
A very pious and prominent deacon of one of our most 
o 


18 


influential Churches told me he regretted this anti-slavery 
agitation in the Church, because it was impossible as yet 
to come anywhere near the Christian standard, and we 
must tolerate many sins. It was enough, he said, that 
when we joined the Church, we thereby professed a hos¬ 
tility to all sin. Great imperfections existed, but he 
thought it better to go on with the good work of saving 
souls than to disturb the quiet of the Church by intro¬ 
ducing an agitation that might excite angry feelings. 
As to his first point, that we must overlook many sins 
because our Christian attainments are so low, and the 
Church is well-nigh dead in tresspasses and sins, it only 
shows more clearly the need of instant action. As to the 
second, that we did our duty in this matter when we joined 
the Church, it is unworthy of the deacon ; for it is the 
argument of those who are wilfully ignorant, superlatively 
lazy, and grossly self-deceived in regard to the effect of 
uniting with the Church. 

“They hear not—see not—know not; for their eyes 
Are covered with thick mists—they will not see.” 

As to the third argument, that we must have peace in 
order to save souls, the Scripture doctrine is, “first pure 
then peaceable.* When the Church is deeply guilty, it 
cannot have peace. “ There is no peace, saith my God, 
to the wicked.” To a corrupt people, Christ ever says, 
“ Think not that I am come to send peace on earth ; I 
am not come to send peace, but a sword.” Peace in a 
degenerate and wicked Church! It is the stupor of a 
fainting man, already in the embrace of death. The 
more vital religion it has, the greater the agitation will 
be. Saving soul3 ! The stagnant waters of this Bethesda 
must be troubled, before they can have a healing power. 

Do you ask, “ Where ought the line to be drawn which 
is to exclude the guilty favorers of slavery ? If it is a 
slaveholder, and B admits him to his Church as a true 
Christian, and C fellowships B, and D fellowships C, and 
so on, where must the line of excommunication be drawn ? n 
Answer: Each case must be judged in the light of its 
own circumstances. Substitute for the word slaveholder. 


19 


the word murderer, pirate, burglar, or adulterer, and deal 
with slavery as with any other great crime. For, in view 
of the fact that this huge diabolism is making more havoc 
of Christian character than any other, in view of the 
fact that full half the visible Church in our land is enlisted 
in its active support, that more than anything else it is 
bringing scandal upon religion, and multiplying infidels 
and atheists in the Church and out of it—surely it ought 
not to be treated with anv ordinary severity. 

You ask, “ What can Ixlo ? ” You can protest against 
this cruelty to Christ’s little ones, in public and in private. 
You can investigate and diffuse anti slavery truth. You 
can repudiate pro-slavery publications. You can rebuke 
those who shrank from the practical application of anti¬ 
slavery preaching. You can encourage the despised and 
persecuted friends of the slave. You can reform or re¬ 
nounce a pro-slavery Church, and join or help form a true 
Church. You can pray and labor for the bondmen. 

You dare not d » this plain duty, for fear it will rend 
the Church ? Who made you controller of the destinies 
of God's Church ? How dare you, like Uzzah, stretch 
forth your hand to steady the ark of God ? The princi¬ 
ple on which you refuse to expel slavery, for fear of dis¬ 
turbance, would make—is making—the Church a sink of 
pollution. No, the devil must be cast out; the “ dumb 
and deaf spirit ” that sanctions the devil must also be 
cast out, thought it cost foaming, convulsions, agonies. 

You want peace in the Church, and so you will quietly 
tolerate slavery, and tru4 to the simple gospel to eradi¬ 
cate this evil in God’s good time ? Have forty years of 
toleration begun to eradicate it among the Cherokees ? 
Have two hundred years of toleration begun to eradicate 
it in the Southern States ? Peace with slavery in the 
Church will be fatal. The Church will go down, and 
ought to go down,.if it persist in bugging this sin. What 
brave, generous youth will join a Church like that ? The 
work has already commenced. It is a fearfully signifi¬ 
cant fact that the very words “ Christian ” and “ infidel ,r 
have almost exchanged meanings. How many a think- 


20 


ing man would rather be known as an infidel philanthro¬ 
pist than a Christian slaveholder ! What a satire in the 
popular lines, 

“ Man is more than constitutions; better rot beneath the sod 

Than be true to Church and State, ivhile we’re doubly false to God 

In conclusion, Christian brother, study this subject. 
You have no right to be ignorant of duty. The sin of 
ignorance is one of the crying sins of the American 
church-member. Follow the right as fast and as far as 
you see it, regardless of consequences. Every man who, 
by any act or omission of bis, allows the inference to be 
drawn that he recognizes the slaveholder, or the wilful 
apologist for slavery, as a true Christian, stands on the 
platform that is crushing the helpless bondman down to 
ruin here and hereafter. No mat ter what the iutention ; 
no matter what the language. Good wishes, brave words, 
caDnot offset the fact that his foot is on the bondman’s 
neck—his weight is grinding him in the dust. In God’s 
name, stand off from your fallen brother.' Lift him up 
if you can. Gut if you cannot do that, see to it at least 
that you add not a feather’s weight to his chain, lest his 
blood forever stain your soul. Thunder in the ears of a 
deaf Church and a dumb ministry their duty to the en¬ 
slaved. Bear them in the arms of your faith aod love to 
the dear God who made us all. And thou, blessed Savior, 
our elder brother, Son of God, Son of man, with thy 
mysterious nature keenly sensitive to every pang the bum- 
blest feels, help us to bear and heed thy voice, saying, 
“ Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” 


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